


No Middle Ground

by charlottechill



Category: The Professionals
Genre: 1990s, Canon Universe, Early Work, M/M, Male Slash, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 09:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20240698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottechill/pseuds/charlottechill
Summary: Doyle tries to get to the bottom of something.





	No Middle Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Concupiscence 3, 1993. (Edited for typos and the occasional extra word.)

Doyle sat in the passenger’s seat of the nondescript brown Volvo, checking his watch again. Ten more minutes had passed in silence, and he didn’t see how he and Bodie would make it through three more hours in this confined space. He almost wished their suspect would come out shooting.

Anything to take the strain off of what was happening between himself and Bodie. 

No, that wasn’t right. Anything to take the strain off himself. Bodie, apparently, had taken the whole thing quite cheekily until he realized that Doyle wouldn’t drop the matter. And Doyle, more determined by the day, was intent on making Bodie as crazy over this as he himself was. So far it was working….

“Bodie,” he began idly, receiving not even a grunt in response. He hadn’t expected one. In the last week the black Irish bastard had clammed up completely, and Doyle knew that was his fault. Wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t let himself be touched, for any reason. All of it, his fault.

Doyle’s latest attempts to talk about what had happened between them a few short weeks ago had yielded either stony silence or furious outbursts. No middle ground for Bodie it seemed, here or anywhere else.

But Doyle could not leave it alone, had to keep messing about with it like a Chinese puzzle. It was too important to him, and by God he’d decided that his partner owed him at least an explanation. He opened his mouth and promptly shut it; angry words hadn’t helped him. It was his own nattering that had finally produced this numb, silent Bodie at his right, who answered work-related questions as necessary and otherwise was mute.

Deep breaths, Doyle, he chided himself. It was almost enough to make him laugh, this little solo dance of his around a subject that Bodie, for all intents and purposes, didn’t care a damn about. 

That was another thing that merited mentioning: how the bloody hell could Bodie ignore something that was so damned good? How could he not want it as badly as Doyle did? Doyle was the first of them to admit to hedonism, but Bodie was as randy as they came, always ready to jump into the thick of good, dirty fun.

It had been that, and more. Six weeks ago Doyle wouldn’t have known how to respond to this desire to get his very masculine partner back into bed with him. Six weeks ago it had been no more than an oft-enjoyed fantasy, an illicit bit of pleasure to be considered when Bodie was unaware of his gaze, or in his own bed alone.

He had been monumentally naïve to think Bodie wouldn’t notice. Even more embarrassing, he realized now, was his belief that Bodie wouldn’t take him up on the silent offer, if the mood was right. Six weeks ago Thursday had been very, very right….

“Doyle, give it up Son, you’re not gonna play word games with your own partner now, are you?”

He wanted to do just that, wanted to forget the gamey innuendoes he’d let fly, all in a bit of fun, all in the spirit of a raucous evening on the town. It was Bodie who’d lied, told the girls they couldn’t be kept for the night, that duty called. Doyle had known then how the evening was going to end. Bodie’s wicked grin as he griped about ‘bloody Cowley and his bloody hours’ and the exhaustion he would be feeling when this night was over was more obvious than if the man had simply said, ‘so Doyle, what say we drop the birds and rave it up together tonight?’

Back at his flat, Doyle’s locked his eyes on the whiskey glass he held, elbows resting on the butcher block table. “I wasn’t flirting with you, Bodie,” he whispered, on shaky ground now, and surprisingly afraid of what it might mean to bed with his partner. “It was Leslie.”

The tall, familiar black-clad body eased into his line of vision, one hand reaching slowly, looming larger in his perception until gentle fingers were touching his chin and forcing his eyes up to meet midnight blue. “You were chatting up Leslie, mate. You were staring at me.” Doyle knew that tone, seductive, full and low, sure of itself, a voice that charmed old ladies and maidens alike, and was now charming him just as effectively. “Have done before too, you know.”

Doyle shivered, wanting to glance away.

“It isn’t a secret, Doyle. It hasn’t been for months now.” Bodie smiled, and Doyle could read the certainty on that face like words on a page. He wouldn’t doubt that Bodie could read his mind, right about now…. “Yeh mate, months at least I had my suspicions. Last couple, well, ‘s been obvious.”

A long silence followed while they measured each other, while Doyle came to terms with the desire that faced him and the fact that he could sate it, with just a nod of his head. There was the additional consideration that Bodie’s two fingers, still just touching his chin, warm and blunt and male, were making his skin tingle unbearably. He wanted more and he knew it.

“Knew I wouldn’t be put off by it, didn’t you?” Bodie whispered, and Doyle sat mesmerized as that arrogant mouth began to loom closer, just as Bodie’s fingers had moments before, filling his field of vision. “Still scared of it just the same, weren’t you?” The litany of words continued, quiet, hypnotising. Bodie was so close, Doyle could smell the warm, whiskey-scented breath barely moving from parted lips. “Nothing to be afraid of, mate. Just me. ‘S fun, you’ll know that soon enough….” 

And Bodie waited, inches away, waited patiently as Doyle searched his face, focused on his mouth for a moment before meeting the amused, waiting gaze and finally, closed his eyes.

Doyle felt warm breath, a tongue outlining his lower lip before Bodie’s mouth touched his. Gentle, strong, seducing him with the knowledge that it was Bodie’s mouth. Deep, long breaths as Bodie’s tongue slipped between his teeth, tempting, searching, learning. Then Bodie was pulling him up out of his chair and firmly against his body. Doyle felt the outline of Bodie’s erection against his groin, and felt the trembling thrill of response to that hardness run a merry chase along every nerve.

Even as inexperienced in this as he was, Doyle still couldn’t stand quiet under his partner’s hands, and very soon he was pressing back, becoming more demanding. He needed to get his hands on that translucent, Irish-pale skin, needed the heat Bodie’s body put out pouring onto his flesh. As he wrestled the damned pullover over the dark head, the light struck all that white skin and brought porcelain to mind. He laughed at the very idea. Nothing like a china doll was Bodie. The muscles, the heat, the smell of him, the aggressiveness of that mouth on his own and those hands kneading his arse, pressing their cocks together, were comfortingly familiar, very male, and very Bodie.

And if it hadn’t been Bodie this would have seemed as foreign and queer as leather boys nancing about in Soho. But Bodie was too familiar to him, and there was nothing poofish about this. There was just hunger, and curiosity and friendship between two men who were both willing and able to take what they wanted…and, he realized a moment later, to give what the other needed. Bodie’s hands were gentling on him, slowing him back.

“Hot out of the gate, eh mate?” he whispered against Doyle’s sweaty hair, pushing lank curls back to run tongue and teeth over his throat. “Thought you might be,” he added with a positively evil chuckle. Gently, he took Doyle’s hand and pressed it to his corduroy-covered erection before mirroring the touch on Doyle.

“Bodie, ah Christ,” he gasped, outlining the thick heat of erection beneath the fabric.

“Mmm, feels good, that.”

It did feel good, it felt wonderful. The breath against his ear was a caress in itself, and the pressing of groin against his cupping palm, and the hands working to loosen his belt and snap. The sound of the zip tugging down rasped loud in the quiet, too-bright room.

Doyle’s knees were trembling by the time Bodie’s hand slipped inside his open jeans, fingers gripping unhesitatingly around his straining cock. “Wait! Wait,” he muttered, catching his breath. He smiled when he met the sudden halting question in blue eyes. “Not in the bloody kitchen.”

“Oh,” Bodie grinned, and gave Doyle’s cock a reassuring squeeze before sliding his hand away. “Right.”

The memory sent unavoidable heat to his groin, and he resisted squirming in the seat. “Bodie,” he finally began, striving for a conversational tone, “I really just don’t understand it. I mean, it isn’t like you didn’t enjoy it, is it?” Bodie’s head came up sharply; until now, because of glowering stares and cut-off sentences and none-too-oblique threats, Doyle hadn’t dared talk casually about it.

He added an embarrassed edge to the next lie. “I was pretty bad at it, was I? Is that it? I know I hadn’t any real experience with it, but I thought I was catching on pretty well. Thought I was pleasing you right enough.”

He knew he had done more than that, remembered vividly the feel of Bodie surging under him, hard muscles contracting in spasms as he came and soft, keening cries escaping that perfect, pouting mouth. He knew that Bodie enjoyed being brought off by him just as much as he enjoyed being brought off by Bodie. Bodie was an uninhibited lover, gentle when it suited him, hot and hard when it suited him, unafraid of trying anything that might feel good. Doyle bit at his finger, resisting the urge to squirm. With heroic effort he stopped remembering heated, sensuous bouts with his partner and returned his attention to the arctic chill between them now.

Doyle sat and stared, determined to wait Bodie out this time, and eventually Bodie glanced over at him with dark, quiet eyes, eyes that revealed not one hint of what he was thinking, then looked back to the flat block’s entrance.

Not this time, mate, Doyle decided. Bodie had started this, Bodie had left him twisting in the wind and Bodie would by god pay for that mistake or correct it. The cool dismissal still stung him, Bodie making it seem like a minor diversion from an otherwise flawless sex life. “No thanks. Sorry, Ray, but this new bird of mine is spectacular; she deserves all my attention.” Right. Pull the other one, Bodie. He’d said it then and he still thought it, now. No matter what Bodie said, Doyle was the more stubborn of them, too; he’d shut up when he was good and ready, and not a second sooner.

“I’ve seen you, watched you for years you know,” he said quietly, watching the usually expressive face for any response. “Just doesn’t make sense. I mean, you wouldn’t have done it at all if you didn’t like doin’ it, would you? And now you’re acting like a bloody virgin!” He heard his own exasperation creeping into his voice, and promptly sat on it.

“And then there’s the birds,” he added. “No one would ever call you queer, not the way you enjoy women. But after what happened with us you can’t convince me you were new to it. So you go either way that feels good. Fine. What stopped you from coming back my way?”

“Ray?” Bodie interrupted the verbal ramblings.

“Yes, Bodie?”

“Shut up.”

“Put up with it,” he replied caustically. “I’ve listened long enough to your football scores, your lost bets and your sexual antics. Besides, it isn’t like this bothers you. Just boring, right? My sexual antics being so much more limited than your own.” He paused, calculating, picking at chinks in that callused armor as quickly as he spotted them. “Unless there’s something better to do to stay awake in the middle of the night, alone in a car, with you?” He let the invitation hang in the air between them, heard the leather of the burgundy jacket Bodie wore creaking as he stiffened, then changed position behind the steering wheel.

“Ah, where was I?” he asked himself when it was clear he’d get no more response. “Oh yes, I was with the birds. Draw them like a magnet, you do, and never let one of them stick. Perhaps it’s a bit clearer, now, why you use them like disposable tissues.”

“A behavior I’m sure you’re familiar with,” Bodie murmured mildly. “Your reputation is sound enough.”

Doyle chuckled, pleased to have gotten any response at all. “That it is, mate. Maybe for the same reasons as yours, eh? I mean, I never thought I’d go for a bloke at all, much less the way I went for you. Can’t get it out of my head.” Doyle kept his voice light, testing Bodie’s limits.

“Enough with the bloody sexual post mortems, will you? I showed you what it’s like, you figured out you enjoyed it, now go find yourself some nice pretty boy and bugger him till he can’t sit down, but leave me out of the picture!”

“That’d hardly be the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Security risks alone boggle the mind.” He shuddered at the thought Bodie might make a habit of this, and dumped the idea outright. Bodie wasn’t stupid, either. “Besides, I only had that one chance to practice. Remember, Bodie, that last time?” He hunkered down in the seat a little, smiling for effect. “That was wonderful it was, you letting me take my time even while you were higher than a kite yourself. You were so bloody patient the way you moved with me, helped me in you, I lost any control I ever had. I can hardly go off and make those mistakes with a stranger. Think of the damage it would do to my fragile ego.”

“Better your ego damaged than your face, Doyle,” he growled, the threat plain in his voice.

He went on as though Bodie had said nothing at all, fingers tapping vague rhythm on the car’s dashboard. “I still don’t understand why you volunteered go to first. You knew I was willing. I trust you with my life, I can certainly trust you with my blasted virginity.”

“Shut up, Ray.” Harder this time, angrier. Good.

“But something happened between when we finished off that night and the next morning when I woke up, and I’m damned if I can figure it out. Something….”

“Ray, if you don’t shut up this fucking minute I’ll pound you, do you understand?

“Can’t, can you? Might blow the op,” Doyle objected reasonably.

“I wouldn’t care if Cowley came down here and threw a bloody spotlight on this car and then announced it to the berk upstairs with a loud-hailer, if you don’t shut up about that I’ll kick your arse into next bloody Tuesday!”

Doyle wisely shut his mouth for a moment, the idea of explaining to the Cow what had made his usually well behaved partner blow his top not on his list of pleasant diversions. But everything Bodie was keeping from him was high on that list, and by god he wanted them. There hadn’t been so much as a friendly smack on his arse or pat on the head since Bodie had hustled him out of his flat that morning three weeks back. Bodie treated him like a bloody leper now, and against his will Doyle was beginning to feel like one.

It couldn’t go on much longer. Something had to break and he didn’t want it to be him. 

The first week of being shut out Doyle had cursed and kicked himself trying to figure out what he had done wrong. 

The second week he had decided to be patient and wait for Bodie to tell him what had happened. 

The third week–this week–he had decided that he’d bloody well beat it out of his silent partner if he had to, but that hadn’t worked either. Bodie was still Bodie, more stubborn than any mule and still clinging to the feeble excuse that the novelty had worn off between midnight and dawn and he simply wasn’t interested in buggering his partner.

It was a lie and Doyle knew it. Worse, Bodie knew he knew it. If Bodie were merely bored by it, then Bodie’d have gone ahead and fucked him just to shut him up. It was, in fact, the strength of Bodie’s resistance that laid bare the lie. The sex was spectacular, fireworks every time, and there was so much feeling there—

Ah hah ha. Doyle finally sussed it out, the answer so obvious that he considered spending another week kicking himself for not seeing it right off. That explained everything: the sudden loss of interest, the distraction, the refusal to touch at all…. He wondered for a moment if he still wanted Bodie, if the man could be so willfully stupid as to think it could just be sex. That sort of sex was too dangerous to their work, and too foreign for him to just blithely try it for kicks. It was Bodie he was trying it for, and Bodie who’d made it worth the risk.

He changed tacks, following his intuition right into the middle of Bodie’s fear. He was pissed off enough to provoke it.

“Bodie,” he said warmly, “you’re good, damned good, but it was more than that. If it were only fucking, I suppose I’d have hared off and tried it years ago—or not tried it with you. But I don’t want to go and bugger some pretty little boy. And I certainly don’t want some pretty little boy buggering me. My arse is reserved solely for you, mate.”

“Well I don’t want it.”

“Solely for you,” he repeated, ignoring his partner with the ease of long practice. “The first time we were together, your hands on me, Christ it was fantastic. The first time I put my hands on you was even better.” And it had been. The sense of knowing Bodie so minutely, of guessing right about what would pleasure him and why, was a high better than any drug. Powerful aphrodisiac, watching that big body react to the smallest of touches, one making him hiss and thrash his head, another making his hips arch hard off the mattress. His fingers unconsciously curled in memory, holding a phantom stiffness nestled into his palm. “Felt so right, holding your cock in my hands, stroking you, sucking you off, and I never thought I’d love something like that.” He turned then, taking in the rigid profile, the anger that poured in waves off his partner. “And that’s it, isn’t it Bodie? It’s the loving it that’s the problem. Every time you looked at me you saw it, you must have done. And every time I looked at you—”

“Blokes don’t fall in love with their sodding partners, Doyle,” Bodie said, his voice devoid of all emotion. “That’s only in the fairy tales. Get it through your head, blokes don’t fall in love with each other.”

The anger seared through Doyle, fury that Bodie would cut him off because he couldn’t reconcile his semantics with his ego— “All just for fun, eh? Blow off a bit of steam in a way that the birds might not take kindly to? Blokes aren’t supposed to fall in love with each other you mean.” He said it gently, like a lover. “But Bodie, blokes do anyway. I know—”

“You stupid, fucking idiotic berk!” The explosion of sound slammed into him like a wall, and Bodie’s open palm slammed into the steering wheel to emphasize the shouted words, shaking the car with his violence. “Blokes don’t fall in love with each other!”

“And that was what scared you off,” he prodded softly, taking vicious satisfaction at the reaction he was getting. “I don’t know how I could have missed it.” He reverted to that distracted, talking-to-himself tone. “You were terrified. Oh, you could trip me right enough so long it was some kind of masculine game, so long as you could use it to show me how sophisticated you were.” His tone turned caustic. “Worldly Bodie’s been in blokes’ pants, what’s to it? But you got caught up in your own bloody game, mate, because you realized that you loved me.”

Doyle was honestly surprised when he felt Bodie’s forearm against his throat, too surprised to struggle for anything more than air.

“You are fucking crazy, Doyle, do you hear me? Crazy!” Bodie ground out, fury in his voice. “I don’t love you, and I bloody well don’t need you! Get it through your head!”

Doyle found the strength to react, reaching to try and pry his partner’s arm away without flailing. It would be too easy to inflict real damage in the confined space, tempered glass inches from them in all directions.

“Broke–broke the rules,” he choked out, catching his partner’s eyes and holding them by sheer force of will as he fought for breath.

For long seconds Doyle thought Bodie might actually be trying to kill him, but something kept him from fighting back. He wondered, as if his body belonged to a different person, how long it could go without oxygen, considered the ramifications for Bodie if the man really did kill him. He was lightheaded, felt his eyelids fluttering and realized vaguely that he was beginning to black out. Then the pressure fell away from his throat and abruptly his windpipe was clear. Air burned his lungs as he dragged it in, and he heard a choked grunt. 

The car lurched, and Bodie plastered against the driver’s door window. The man couldn’t get any farther away from him without leaving the car.

Doyle coughed, shuddered, felt his hands trembling against his jeans and tried to stop them shaking. Physical senses came rushing back with a vengeance, and he found himself staring at his partner as he sucked in more air. Bodie kept glancing wildly over at him with twitchy, frightened eyes. And well he should be, Doyle knew, but not for going crazy like that. Bodie was afraid of what had driven him to it…and the fact that he’d done it told Doyle who had already won. He stayed where he was, resisting the urge to rub at his neck, and kept his mouth shut. He could afford to be generous.

“Doyle?” Bodie whispered eventually. Doyle looked at him. “Mate? You all right?”

Doyle choked once, pushing himself upright in the car seat as his breathing steadied. It was as close to an apology as his partner would be able to manage; Doyle had hit the mark with his accusations, and it wasn’t something a man like Bodie could take easily. “I’m okay. I’m fine.” It was obvious he wasn’t hurt—he’d had the wind knocked out of him before, lost air for longer than that. Bodie was merely terrified of retribution. And rightly so. Any other time Bodie lost control like that, Doyle would’ve flayed the hide off him for it. It was the only way, sometimes, to keep Bodie in line.

This time, however, Doyle had higher priorities. He let the minutes tick by in silence, watching Bodie whose eyes were glued to the building’s entry as if his life depended on it. The stubborn profile said ‘keep off’ like words wouldn’t have; Bodie was determined to bury what had just happened, for as long as he possibly could. Doyle was equally determined not to let him. This was one time when his copper’s patience was guaranteed to win over a mercenary’s eager headlong rush.

The quiet in the car was peaceful, for him; for Bodie, obviously it wasn’t. He listened to the shallow, tense breathing, nothing so obvious as hyperventilation—Bodie was too well-trained for that. But years of partnership had taught Doyle every sign of tension in the big body, and all of them were there.

Less than thirty minutes remained of their shift before Doyle broke the silence. “Bodie?”

Bodie jerked at his voice, swinging his head round. “What?”

“Make a deal with you. You tell me what that was all about, I’ll not mention it again.” Bodie stiffened. “It’s the best you’re going to get,” he added reasonably, “and it’s letting you off easy.”

Bodie began to glare, and cut it off just as quickly. Doyle smiled to himself, rubbing absently at his neck; old Bodie thought he was on thin ice, and he was.

“It’s not as important as you’re trying to make it, Ray,” he said, his voice as cool as winter wind. “You’re always doing this, you know. I’ve watched you for years, getting farcically serious about things, people. Delving with every breath into Love’s great mystery. Forgetting before the week is out what you thought was so important. You’re always playing this true-love game like you don’t know any other way to get a leg over, and I’m not interested, all right?”

Doyle thought about it, watching the compressed line of the wide mouth, the narrowed eyes that longed to launch daggers at him. No, Bodie knew better than to yell at him after that. Knew better than to lie to him, too, so what he had just heard was Bodie’s version of the unvarnished truth.

It was a surprise, seeing the picture of himself that Bodie somehow saw. Doyle had never considered that passion for things, for feelings, might look inconstant, or fickle. Nothing could be further from the truth.

He remembered how he and Bodie had been, that last night before Bodie had kicked him out of bed. That big body, spread naked and spent beneath him, had seemed to demand loving attention. So Doyle had murmured to him, manhandled him about so he could check his arse, massage him gently, whisper loving words into his ear. He’d been tender, because Bodie had wanted it and because it had pleased him to offer it. Tenderness was all too rare a thing between them. And Bodie thought that was a lie? No, not that; Bodie thought it was passing fancy.

Bodie refused to be cast aside. Doyle almost laughed out loud. After all these years, after everything else they’d managed to survive even without the gunplay and political dangers, Bodie was afraid Doyle would dump him. Bodie was frightened of loving him, there was no question about that. But Bodie was more terrified of Doyle loving him back…and with the picture the stupid sod had painted of him, Doyle couldn’t even blame him. He owed Bodie an apology—not that he’d offer it after what just happened. Later, perhaps, when things had gotten back to normal between them. When normal included everything that it ought to.

Bodie checked his watch and started the car. “It really is all right, Bodie,” he said, reaching for the R/T to log them out. “Couldn’t leave it alone until I heard from you why. Now I have.” He reached out and squeezed Bodie’s bicep, ignoring the sudden tension in the muscle. “No worries, mate. Consider the subject closed.”

Bodie cleared his throat. “Good idea, Ray. It’s all so crazy. Best forgotten.”

“Nah, not crazy,” he denied, shaking his head to emphasize the words. “Just…different.” 

There wasn’t anything else to say, nothing left to quiet Bodie’s fears but a little time. Even Bodie, if left alone and given enough time, would think it through eventually, and find the error in his reasoning. And, stray bullets notwithstanding, they had plenty of that.

• • •

Two months went by, then four, and Doyle watched Bodie forget his fears throughout that time. It was a beautiful thing to see; things he hadn’t noticed as they had slipped away from the partnership were returning with a vengeance: things like playfulness, and flirtation. 

His heart rate was up, his lungs heaving with suppressed laughter as he paused in CI5’s front foyer. Bodie wasn’t far behind him, and bent on revenge for Doyle’s latest prank. Silly berk, he should be getting the evidence out of Cowley’s office—but revenge always took a higher priority than common sense, with him and Bodie. Cowley entered the building, nodded, walked past him with a briefcase and an armload of files. Doyle checked his watch, saw disaster in his mind’s eye, and leaned against the doorframe to watch. Sure enough, dependable as clockwork, Bodie, face flushed with laughter and the lust for revenge, came careering around the corner just as Cowley reached it, sending them both into the wall. Briefcase clattering, papers and files flying, Cowley was working up a head of steam to bellow when Bodie offered a very distracted, “Sorry, sir,” and darted past him and straight toward Doyle. 

Doyle couldn’t have planned it better if he’d tried. He hit the street at a dead run.

Much later in his flat, musing over a third lager, he said, “I forgot how much fun we used to have making everyone else’s lives a living hell.”

Bodie stretched his legs and settled his boots on the edge of the coffee table. “Makes it all worthwhile, eh?” He had gone reflective, paying less attention than Doyle was used to.

Doyle shrugged. Cowley was going to have their guts for garters tomorrow, and that was only if he forgot Bodie knocking him into the corridor wall. He said as much, wincing in advance of the verbal flaying that awaited them.

“I’m not worried. Your fault, after all—I wasn’t even along for the ride on this one, and I’ll be sure that you receive all the credit due you.” Bodie sipped at his beer, chuckling. “Christ, Doyle, I was shocked you were willing to shell out the money for that thing, much less plant it in his office bath.” He chortled. “Cowley’ll be happy to know you had the lung power to inflate her so quickly.”

Lazily, Doyle turned his head against the couch back, smiling at his partner’s natural cheerfulness. “That’s the beauty of it, Bodie. He’ll never believe I did it. Never believe I had the balls to put it there, either, no matter what you say.” Bodie thought about it, staring at him. Doyle delighted in watching pale skin go ashen.

“You bastard,” Bodie breathed, outraged. “You bloody-minded bastard!”

“Like I said,” he jeered, “that’s the beauty of it.”

It was with real pleasure that he watched Bodie wrestling with the news. When the terror faded and a dangerous, evil glint slid like storm clouds into the blue eyes, Doyle resigned himself to getting as good as he’d given. He wondered if anyone would survive their escalating practical jokes.

“Yeh well,” Bodie said then, visibly repressing a shudder as he leaned back against the couch, “the Old Man needs something like that on occasion. Breaks the monotony of the job.”

Doyle groaned. “What about you and me, mate? What breaks up our monotony?”

Dark brows drew up as Bodie turned curious eyes his way. “Eh?”

“You and me,” he repeated. “How long have we been partners? Friends?”

“Which answer do you want?” Bodie asked evilly.

“Take your pick.”

Bodie tucked his chin and tipped the bottle back. “Dunno. Four years? A little more?

“Sounds about right. Longer than any other friendship I’ve ever managed.” Bodie just grunted. “I’ve been thinking,” he began. The grunt came more warily, this time. He turned to find Bodie’s eyes intently on him, blue-black in the dim light, like a night sky. “You and I, we’ve gotten up to a lot of mischief together. I’ve managed to get along with you longer than with any woman I thought I loved.”

“Speaking of women,” Bodie said, abruptly changing the subject, “I haven’t seen your new bird.”

Doyle let him get away with it. For now. “Haven’t got one. Too much trouble, lately. Speaking of which, are you leaving me tonight for the lovely Melissa?”

Bodie relaxed. “No. She’s got weekend plans, some sort of tromp through the woods with a bunch of teen-age kids.” He mock-shuddered.

“You’re planning on keeping her awhile, then?”

“Don’t know yet.” Bodie was noncommittal. “But she does have a flatmate that’d tie your balls in knots for you, if you asked her nicely. Lovely bit—let me set you up with her, we’ll do a foursome.”

“Nah, not interested.”

There was a careful pause, and for the first time Bodie probed the reply. “I haven’t heard you prattling on about your conquests lately.”

“That’s because I haven’t had any.”

“Oh.” Then another careful probing. “Bored?”

Now that was an interesting word, coming from Bodie. He took it as a hint, and settled a little deeper in the cushions. “No, just waiting for something better to come along. Got tired of wasting my time.” The tension thickened perceptibly in the room, a familiar, lazy anticipation. He felt a bit like Bodie must’ve, being the seducer that first time…. 

Bodie had apologized in a dozen covert ways for losing his temper in the car, those months ago. In exchange, Doyle had applied himself to more thorough study of his partner’s wonts, so he wouldn’t make the same mistakes. They’d resettled comfortably quickly enough, without ever a word about sex with each other, and queer jokes had become conspicuous by their absence. Well, no better time than the present.

“So how long are you going to make me wait?”

“Ray….”

“Any time anyone’s ever told me they loved me and seemed to mean it,” he said truthfully, “I’ve ended up out in the cold wondering why the hell I bother. But with you—it never mattered before how you felt about me, and I can’t see why it ought to matter now. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather never hear you say it, whether you mean it or not.”

Bodie cleared his throat and pushed himself up off the couch, standing with his back to Doyle. “No worries there.”

“Good.”

He twirled the lager bottle between his palms, watching the lights glint off the liquid and through the glass. After a long moment he heard Bodie draw in a breath, and resettled the bottle at his crotch. 

“You think that’s the only difference, Ray? Whether or not we’re shouting vows of undying affection at every verse end? Shallow,” Bodie said, his voice as smooth as Cowley’s expensive malt.

He could read nothing in it, no quaver to guide him—which he supposed was a good thing. Bodie never had any trouble warning people away. “No,” he said carefully, “not really. I just think, none of it makes a difference. You think you feel differently for me, because you haven’t fucked me yet?” There, that sent a ripple of something through Bodie. “Think you’ll feel different, after? You won’t, you know.” 

This time Bodie didn’t even flinch; he’d spent some time over the last four months thinking about this, just as Doyle had trusted him to. 

Doyle went on. “I think you feel whatever you feel, regardless. And you worrying about whether or not I’ll need flowers and chocolates and all that crap is a waste of our time.” He angled his head, measuring the waiting stillness in the big body, in the defensive turning-away. “I know you don’t think men love each other, Bodie, but that didn’t stop me. Didn’t stop you either, did it.”

“I never said I loved you.” The words came even cooler this time.

“No. Tell you the truth,” he added, giving his partner an easy out, “I don’t think you do love me. I just think we’ve spent so long together that we’re stuck with each other, so we might as well take some pleasure from it.”

“It didn’t take you four months to work that out, Doyle.”

There was a rough edge to Bodie’s voice now that Doyle couldn’t read. He shrugged unseen, trying desperately to gauge the tension in his partner’s back. “No. Didn’t take four minutes, in fact. I just wanted to let you get your feet back under you. I wanted you to see it made no difference. Whether you said it. Whether you felt it. Whether you fucked me through the mattress—which, incidentally, I’ve had more than my share of sticky fantasies about.” There, a nice introduction to what he fully planned to bully his partner into tonight.

A snort, the abrupt, single shake of shoulders. “You would.”

He wondered if Bodie’d had any sticky fantasies of his own. “So indulge me,” he breathed.

Another subtle tremor traveled Bodie’s frame. “Why should I?” It sounded as petulant as a kid, and Doyle relaxed. Smiled. Bodie was playing with him now, wanting to hear something that sounded like the very thing he’d run from, before.

“Because I want it all, Bodie. I’m a selfish bastard and that isn’t news to you. I want the partnership, the friendship, the fun…. It makes me crazy, the way you’ve taken to touching me up again, leaves me on the simmer all the time. So I want the sex, as well.” He felt surprisingly calm, surveying the broad expanse of back, the firm rounded arse that reminded him so tactilely of their last night in bed together, the thick thighs that stretched the pleats out of whatever trousers Bodie owned…. “Bodie?” Only then did he realize that the odd tremors passing through his partner were repressed laughter.

“I knew you couldn’t leave it alone, Doyle,” he said, and he could hear the humor in the words. “Be unnatural, like me watching a bit of skirt walk by without a flicker of interest. Never happen.” Doyle watched muscles bunch, the subtle shift of curves, watched as Bodie finally turned to stare down at him. Blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “I’m surprised you let it lie this long.”

He shrugged a little and handed his beer up to Bodie’s waiting hand. Then he spread his thighs with a purpose. “Seemed the thing to do.” As he watched, the amusement faded, and Bodie frowned a little. “Sorry,” he added without knowing why. “It’s just that the only thing we’ve ever done quickly is trust each other, and only that because the job demanded it. Everything else…” Not much else to say, really. “Come here.”

Sighing, shaking his head in mock resignation, Bodie stepped over his extended leg and knelt between his thighs. “Don’t expect me to be faithful.”

Doyle smiled, feeling the heat of open palms where they pressed against his hips. He spread his legs further to accommodate the wide ribcage. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They just stared at each other for long minutes, saying nothing, and Doyle let the anticipation wash through him. It wasn’t just sex; it had never been that. It was consummation, of every hard-won intimacy they had ever struggled for with each other, of every minor trust that proved itself worthy. The look in Bodie’s eyes said he knew it.

Doyle leaned up, forcing Bodie’s head back to keep eye contact with him, and paused when his mouth was an inch from Bodie’s. “Might even let you talk me into that foursome,” he murmured, sliding his tongue out to trace the open, sensuous lips.

Bodie surged against the touch, forcing their mouths into harsh, aggressive contact, his body rearing up to push Doyle back against the couch. 

Blanketed by his partner’s heavy weight, feeling their groins pressed together like lovers, body tingling from the promise in that kiss, Doyle could only stare when Bodie drew his mouth away and said, “Let her find her own lay.”


End file.
